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U.Today has prepared the top three news stories over the past day.
Key highlights from Ripple CEO’s “60 Minutes” interview
On Dec. 8, the “60 Minutes” program featuring Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse went live, to the great delight of the XRP community. During the interview, Garlinghouse stated that the cryptocurrency industry is not seeking deregulation but rather clearer regulatory guidelines. “We haven’t been asking to be deregulated. We’ve been asking to be regulated,” he told host Margaret Brennan. The CEO also mentioned the FIT 21 bill, which aims to establish a new regulatory framework for digital assets and was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in May. The episode also featured former SEC official John Reed Stark, who criticized the industry, labeling cryptocurrency a “scourge” and asserting that it constitutes pure speculation without financial backing. Stark further claimed that cryptocurrencies should be classified as securities. In response, Garlinghouse argued that current securities laws do not adequately address the unique nature of digital assets. Commenting on his interview, Garlinghouse claimed that “60 Minutes” “shockingly left out” the part about XRP not being a security.
“Absurd”: Top trader thinks XRP is preparing for round 2
XRP has recently garnered significant attention on the market thanks to its rapid price growth. Even though the asset has dropped a bit in the last couple of days, with its price standing at $2.17 at the moment of writing, it is still trading just approximately 36% below its all-time high from January 2018. Over the past month, XRP’s market cap increased from around $30 billion to the current $124 billion, positioning the crypto in fourth place on CoinMarketCap’s top. Despite this impressive growth, market expert “DonAlt” suggests that XRP may be poised for further gains, anticipating a potential “round 2” of price increases. This prospect seems “absurd” to him, considering XRP’s recent surge of over 470% in just a few weeks. The market participants are speculating regarding the potential for XRP to surpass not only Ethereum but possibly Bitcoin in valuation, should this anticipated growth materialize.
121 billion PEPE stun Binance, What’s happening?
Yesterday, Dec. 9, SpotonChain X account spotted a large PEPE transaction that garnered the attention of the crypto community. As stated in SpotonChain’s X post, a smart trader deposited 121.75 billion PEPE tokens, valued at approximately $3.22 million, to Binance. This trade has reportedly yielded a profit of $2.13 million for the trader, representing a remarkable 197% increase within just 2.5 months. This successful trade follows another previous transaction in May, which netted the same trader an estimated profit of $1.23 million using a different wallet. Despite a broader sell-off on the crypto market, where major currencies like Bitcoin and XRP have faced declines, PEPE has demonstrated resilience; however, over the past 24 hours, the frog-themed coin dropped by 4.97%, trading at $0.00002475. Meanwhile, traders are awaiting the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting set for Dec. 17-18, with expectations for a rate decrease now estimated at 85% as market conditions remain uncertain.